On Diners

One of the oddest things I have found in my time in the northeast is the region’s ardor for diners. I have nothing per se against them. They provide certain services. The food is adequate if you are on the road. If you have children in your party, they offer an easy choice. The same with older people who might not be real into food. They are pretty cheap. If you want to do some work in public, you often can there.

In other words, diners serve a certain function in society. But having lived the first 37 years of my life in, well, pretty much every region of the country but the northeast, I certainly did not expect the dominance of diner culture up here. The nation has Denny’s and that’s, well, what it is. And the South has Waffle House which has a charm of sort. But the cultural impact here is just so different and to me strange given the relatively limited benefits the things offer. This is why I read Ed Levine’s essay about diners with such interest. Yet I remained unconvinced that they offer anything more than what I mentioned in the first paragraph. They aren’t about the food. I guess I don’t care about homey service from Flo so maybe that’s it. Or maybe it is my general indifference to breakfast and most of its traditional foods. I think the last time I had a craving for pancakes was in college. They are locally owned working-class businesses by and large and that’s cool from a political perspective, but it doesn’t per se make me want to go to them. Also, I don’t drink the vile brewed beverage known as coffee so a bottomless cup of that will never appeal.

So what I am missing here? Why am I a horrible human being for my indifference to the charms of diners?